Alaska Trip Planning, need help.

[Gaprofitt]

Hello All,

 

We are starting the early stages of planning an Alaska cruise and needed some opinions. Most likely we will be doing a 7 day cruise with no land tour. We live in Atlanta.

 

1.) I'm assuming the Voyage of the Glaciers one way cruises are much more enjoyable and scenic than just the round trip inside passage cruises. Is this correct?

 

2.)What would be the cheapest way to go? Flying one way into Vancouver and home from Anchorage or vice versa would cost a fortune. Would it be possible to rent a car one-way in Anchorage and drive back to Vancouver, how far would that be? Any suggestions or comments?

 

3.)What is the difference in time of year, may versus august, sept etc as far as weather, seeing wildlife etc.

 

4.)Is a balcony cabin a must for Alaska cruises?

 

5.)Any top recommendations for excursions.

 

Thanks,

 

Greg

[elleluv]

Hi Greg,

I haven't done an Alaska cruise, but I live here, so I can help you with some of your questions.

You probably don't want to drive between Anchorage and Vancouver. It's about 2200 miles. :eek: Most people don't realize how far away Alaska is from the lower 48.... I didn't myself until we were planning our move here. It took us about 7 days (in December) to drive.

I live in the interior and the last 1/2 of September is when it generally starts to get chilly up here. That's when we have our fall (it lasts about 2 weeks!) and the first time we have freezing temps during the night.

August is generally our rainy season. We don't usually get a hard rain, just a lot of drizzle (visualize Seattle).

It's beautiful up here whenever you decide to visit, just make sure that you are prepared with appropriate attire. Lots of clothes to layer and rain gear.

Good luck with your trip. It's guaranteed to be the memory of a lifetime!:)

elleluv

[cruisergrandma]

Hi Greg,

 

We are also from GA - about 60 miles north of Atlanta. We sailed to Alaska on the Carnival Spirit in May 2004. We chose the round trip from Vancouver to save money on airfare. It was magnificent. The day we spent in Glacier Bay was so beautiful mere words can not describe it. We booked an inside room - as we usually do. We spend very little time in the room. We spent most of our time on various decks looking at scenery. We flew into Seattle (cheaper airfare) and spent a few days getting to know Seattle. We took Amtrak from Seattle to Vancouver. This is a great trip. 4 hours along the coast. Beautiful scenery and the cost was only $23.00 per person. We booked Carnival's transfer by bus back to Seattle. The weather in May was surprisingly warm. They were having a heat wave and it was 70 the day we were in Juneau. I would advise taking clothes to layer. We highly recommend whale watching with Capt. Larry in Juneau. We saw humpback whales, sea lions and a very close view of eagles. Any way you go you will truly love this trip. Enjoy.

[Gaprofitt]

Thanks for the comments. Do they offer cruises that are roundtrip that go as far and Princess Cruise Lines Voyage of the Glaciers? It goes up to College Fjord and stops at Anchorage. Most are one way.

[rfholcom]

I too am from just north of Atlanta. We are cruising on Carnival Spirit this summer. I like the idea that there are very few ships in each port when the Carnival Spirit is at each port. We ended up being able to book frequent flyer miles with Delta but before that I was looking at booking a flight to Seattle and then booking a one way on Alaska Air from Seattle to Anchorage.

[Budget Queen]

With a one way- the addition is the added College Fjords- certainly scenic glacier sailing, but for me no way worth the added time and expense in and out of Anchorage. I only do this when I have at least another week for interior touring. I have done several one way trips, AND some sailings were a long distance from shore and barely binoculars offered viewing. Round trip Vancouver trips pack a LOT into 7 days and no way in my opinion are they less worthwhile. May is wonderful for Inside Passage sailing, I also like mid to late August. Be carefull about past the first week of Sept- very very iffy weather possibilities and no longer the real deep discounts there used to be. Main factor- go well prepared with your attire, then it won't matter. :)

[JohnQ]

Greg,

If you want to research one way cruise from Vanc to Anc (Seward), you can keep trying different airfares. You want to check Expedia and enter multicity search, not two one ways. It will be more than cheapest RT to Vanc or Anc but still not bad. On our Sep trip, airlines were not being nice, so we booked RT to Seattle, second RT from Seattle to Anc. We then crusied from Seward back to Vanc, spent a 1 1/2 days in Vanc and drove rental car to Seattle for our flt back. Even though we threw away 2nd half of RT back to Seattle, we still saved about $200-250 each for going thru this, over the best prices they wanted to offer us for the preferred method. We talked to many people from the east coast who were getting prices in the $450-600 range while we were being offered $650-750 for decent flts from the west coast that didn't have 4-5 hr layovers. So if you keep working at it, and go online with the airlines sights, it can be done. We have used Alaska Air the last two times, but were going to use Southwest to Seattle until Alaska Air met same price.

[Bribrittmom]

We were able to get airfare from Cleveland to Vancouver and Anchorage to Cleveland for our 6/29/05 cruise on the Carnival Spirit for $513 per person. Booked it through Cheap Tickets. Still expensive for a family of four ,but substantially cheaper than United's own website.

[drodrigues]

Small world Gaprofitt, Cruisergrandma and Rfholcom. I am from Marietta, GA and my wife and I are doing our first Alaska cruise on the Island Princess on June 4th. We ended up using our Delta Skymiles to fly to Vancouver and then return from Anchorage.

 

Of course with the recent ice storm we just had here in Georgia and the continued cold weather I'm starting to feel like I'm already in Alaska.

 

I do lots of flying and have found several websites that always seem to help me find the best fares. Try these:

 

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/

 

http://home.netcom.com/~rcowen/

 

http://www.orbitz.com/

 

http://www.travelocity.com/

[CaribbeanBound]

We did what it looks like you want to do.

 

We did Alaska on a budget and experienced more in Juneau and Skagway than most anyone else on the ship. Also enjoyed Tracy's Arm Glacier and Ketchikan.

 

Here is a very detailed review of our Princess Star to Alaska cruise which departed out of Seattle. It's got lots of great information on how you can thoroughly enjoy Seattle and Alaska on a low budget.

 

http://www.lavasurfer.com/info/alaska.html

 

Have a great trip!